Washington (CNN) - The Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest groups in the grassroots conservative movement, hosted a fifth anniversary celebration Thursday in the nation's capital, marking five years of change in the country's political climate.

With a string of speakers, the event focused on the movement’s milestones, such as the 2010 takeover of the House of Representatives and the re-energizing effect the tea party had on right-leaning political activists.

Many speakers also hit back against the charge that the tea party has racist elements - a charge that has been consistently and vehemently denied by activists in the movement.

Conservative firebrand Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky warned the crowd that the tea party movement needs to be more inclusive and steer away from incendiary rhetoric about President Barack Obama – a nod to recent comments by gun rights activist, rocker, and tea party favorite Ted Nugent, who recently called Obama a "subhuman mongrel," sparking outrage and calls for Republicans to distance themselves from controversial figure.

"There are times, and I don't think it's our movement, but there are times when people are using language that shouldn't be used. I recently criticized someone for using some of that language and I'm not going to bring it up but I will say that we can disagree with the President without calling him names," Paul said. "There are people out in the public who are taking away from our message. Let's try not to be part of that."

"If we want a bigger crowd and we want to win politically, our message has to be a happy message, one of optimism, one of inclusiveness, one of growth," Paul added.

The tea party goal

Paul's speech focused largely on limiting the size of government and reining in federal spending. Paul said government spending is on autopilot, as evident by October's partial government shutdown, where only a fraction of government function was halted and spending continued automatically.

Sen. Ted Cruz, whose attempt to block parts of the President's sweeping healthcare law was the catalyst to the government shutdown, said millions of Americans, including Democrats, are fed up with Obamacare.

"We are making the case for the American people and let me tell you I'm absolutely convinced we are going to repeal every single word of Obamacare," Cruz said to applause.

Cruz, elected to the Senate in 2012 with broad tea party support, has drawn criticism from fellow Republicans for bucking leaders in his own party.

Cruz praised Paul's filibuster last year demanding more information from the Obama administration on the use of drones. The Texas senator also pointed to gun rights advocates' win over legislation pushing background checks on firearm sales, which failed to move forward in the Senate last April.

"That was ya'lls victory, it was the power of the grassroots," he said. "Liberty is never safer than when politicians are terrified."

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, another senator elected in 2010 with strong tea party support, said the movement is at a pivotal moment with an opportunity to push a more conservative agenda.

"As citizens, we have certain rights that are ours. Certain rights that we were born with as American citizens - the right to live under a limited-purpose national government; one that recognizes your right to privacy; one that recognizes your right to have most of the governing done at the state and the local level; one that recognizes the right not to live under and emperor who thinks he has every power to legislate under the sun," Lee said.

Lee also suggested the tea party movement should capitalize on the changing political landscape within the GOP.

"The size of the hole in the Republican Party is, I believe, exactly the size and the shape of a conservative reform agenda."

The tea party’s evolution

"What you did for America is stellar," Rep. Michele Bachmann told the audience. "It was life changing to the life blood of this nation, because you and the movement that we represent took the gavel out of Nancy Pelosi's hand...You did that."

Most activists in the grassroots movement called for less federal taxes and spending; a curtailment of some federal powers in the areas they believe are the sovereign domain of state and local governments; and of course opposition to the large federal programs such as the bailouts and the stimulus, as well as Obamacare and the Wall Street and banking reforms, which were both passed in 2010.

The tea party movement instantly gave energy to the Republican Party, which lost the White House and lost more seats in both the House and the Senate in the 2008 elections. That energy was witnessed at large tea party rallies throughout 2009 and 2010, as well as the noisy opposition to Obamacare at congressional town halls during the August 2009 break.

The movement is credited with helping Republicans take sweeping victories in the 2010 midterm elections, when the GOP, thanks to a 63 seat pick up, regained control of the House, and narrowed the Democrats' majority in the Senate. And the movement is also credited with pushing the party, and the lawmakers it elected to Congress, further to the right.

Fighting back against the critics

One prominent theme among the speeches Thursday was a pushback against critics who insist the tea party movement is racist.

The NAACP in 2009 passed a resolution condemning what it characterized as rampant racism in the grassroots conservative movement. The NAACP claimed that conservative activists had engaged in racist behavior, for example, by waving signs containing symbols or slogans demeaning to African-Americans and President Obama, in particular.

Also, the NAACP claimed that tea party supporters think issues of importance to African-Americans get too much attention.

Last October, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida, used an image of a burning cross in an email to supporters that compared the tea party movement to the Ku Klux Klan.

High-profile tea party supporters have long argued against the notion that their movement has racist elements.

Keli Carender, a tea party activist, said her “biggest surprise” about her involvement with the movement were the charges of racism.

“I have never been called a racist in my life before because I am not,” she said in a short speech.

“My parents marched for civil rights and they are tea partyers and so they were dumbfounded. They were like, huh? How can we be these horrible people that they are saying that we are – and that it stuck. We have to work so hard to overcome that.”

Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, was elected in the 2010 tea party wave that helped Republicans take back the House. He joked that “the tea party patriots are so racist, they decided that they wanted a Puerto Rican Mormon to be their congressman” – a reference to himself.

Others took a more serious approach. Jeffrey Lord, a contributing editor to the American Spectator, turned the tables on the left, saying they’re the ones with a racist history.

“These are people with a long and wretched political history of depending on any and every scheme imaginable then and now that judges their fellow Americans by their skin color,” he said. “And they have the nerve to call the tea party racists? It is more than past time to call them out (applause) and tell the party of slavery, segregation, lynching, the Ku Klux Klan (and) racial quotas to quit judging their fellow Americans by skin color.”

K. Carl Smith, an African-American and founder of the Frederick Douglass Republicans, works with members of his party on minority outreach. As the GOP works to diversify its base, Smith offered advice on how to spread the core principles of the party.

“We must make Frederick Douglas an integral part of the conservative message,” he said. “If not, we're doomed for failure.”

How the tea party started

The first tea party protests broke out in February 2009, as the new President campaigned for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 law, better known by most Americans as the Recovery Act or the stimulus.

The stimulus was the first major bill pushed by Obama as he took over in the White House, and he signed the measure into law just a few weeks into his presidency. The law was designed to respond to the severe recession and skyrocketing unemployment, which the President inherited, by saving and creating jobs by pumping money into the economy. The original price tag of the measure was $787 billion, which was later revised upward to around $830 billion.

The stimulus, along with the Wall Street and auto bailouts implemented a few months earlier under President George W. Bush, are largely credited with sparking the creation of the tea party movement. Credit also goes to CNBC anchor Rick Santelli, whose rant on live television five years ago against the various federal programs, including a move to use taxpayer dollars to help those facing home foreclosure to keep their homes, helped energize activists.

"President Obama, are you listening?" Santelli exclaimed.

What next?

While it was successful in the House in 2010, the failure of the GOP to recapture the Senate in 2010, and again in 2012, was partially blamed on GOP candidates with tea party support that were deemed too controversial or conservative for the general election electorate.

And the tea party movement's influence in the 2012 Republican presidential nomination was also questioned, as the more conservative candidates such as Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum, lost out to Mitt Romney, who did not enjoy widespread support from grassroots activists.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, a conservative from Texas, said the tea party movement arose from the "doom and gloom" of the economic recovery acts of the early years of Obama's presidency.

"Republicans didn't appreciate the majority that they were given by the tea parties in 2012 and we nominated a wonderful man, not because he was the best candidate but because it was his turn," Gohmert said of Romney. "We've got to restructure the playing field that we're playing on."

But those wishing to write the movement's obituary would be mistaken. Tea party backed lawmakers pushed House Republicans to help shutdown the federal government last fall in a battle over funding the health care law. And this year, six of the 12 GOP senators up for re-election face primary challenges from the right.

"We have a very real, real opportunity to throw the sand in the ears and stop it and take the gavel out of Harry Reid's hand this November," Bachmann said. "Let's not blow it."

Tea party movement activists and supporters make up around two-fifths of the GOP, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll. The survey also indicates that they want more ideological purity when it comes to Republican candidates. Half of tea party supporters questioned in the poll say their party's candidates are not conservative enough. Only 39% of non-tea party Republicans feel the same way.

As for Democrats, two-thirds questioned say their candidates are about right when it comes to ideology.

soundoff(233 Responses)

Pete Huttlinger

The Tea Party is not even a real party. It's not been listed on any ballot I've ever used for voting.

February 27, 2014 11:34 am at 11:34 am |

Rudy NYC

S.B. Stein

My bigger question is where were these people when the George W. Bush administration was pushing through bills that weren't paid for and expansion of government programs? Don't these people oppose anything and everything that government does except the military?
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They were around a decade ago. They just had a different name and claimed a different priority. They called themselves "minutement" and they were all about exporting democracy and the war on terror. They werer the people who had swift boated John Kerry in 2004. They still had the same social issues on the side, but since Republicans were running everything, the "tax and spend" issues were not part of the conversation. The arguments and talking points haven't changed in decades. They just recycle them with the tide.

Funny how the TP came around 5 years ago after the previous administration drove the country into the tank. Please keep bringing you batchit politicians to the stump. The country will be blue before you know it.

February 27, 2014 11:36 am at 11:36 am |

smith

Bob

5 years and yet the KKK has a better rating

I knew someone was going to throw out those three letters.

February 27, 2014 11:36 am at 11:36 am |

Hogan's Goat

You have to wonder how stubbornly ignorant these people are when you hear them still repeating the silly stuff from Sarah Palin. Death panels, Benghazi, sky contrails, Kenyan birth certificate, socialism. You know, if the President was actually a socialist, he'd probably have tried to pass some socialist legislation by now?
It's easy to tell how old the TP is at any given moment: how long has Obama been in office? They started the next day.

February 27, 2014 11:37 am at 11:37 am |

ladyjag

Welcome to the Communist Party the Teaparty and the Republicans.

February 27, 2014 11:38 am at 11:38 am |

ShawnDH

...now more and more people become Democrats thanks to those crazies. Pretty awesome. Keep up the good work, dummies!

February 27, 2014 11:39 am at 11:39 am |

Amused Independent

The Tea Party is essentially a third party, to the right of the GOP. I'm amused at the fear that provokes in Liberals, who seem much farther left of center now than in years past. The Tea Party was their own creation, for moving so far left, and ignoring any minority view...even though the balance was what 51% Dem, 49% Conservative in the elections. We need politicians in the center to have any chance of getting things done. All the immature 'tea bagger' rhetoric just inflames the divide, and signs up more on the far right.

February 27, 2014 11:39 am at 11:39 am |

Anthony

all this report proves is that the GOP should have had an abortion 5 years ago, as we all know they did not have one and now we are stuck with a bunch of temper tantrum 5 years olds, who are hell bent to bringing this government to its knees every chance they get. there actions have helped to increase the national debt not hinder it. this is why real American Drink Coffee, we know Tea is bad for the brain.

February 27, 2014 11:40 am at 11:40 am |

Greg in Atlanta

If the Tea Party believes in "No Taxation Without Representation", why are why not protesting the Republican efforts to restrict the voting rights of eligible voters all over the country? Curiouser and curiouser...

February 27, 2014 11:40 am at 11:40 am |

TomGI

This stupid article reads like a tea party press release. Paul Steinhauser and Ashley Killough must be tea party members and supporters

February 27, 2014 11:40 am at 11:40 am |

Enough is Enough

It would be amusing to me how devoid of facts the left is if it weren't so important.

I've felt that in comment sections as well. Many times I've had to walk away just to clear my head.

February 27, 2014 11:41 am at 11:41 am |

Jamez Madness

Seems about right, they certainly act like many 5 year olds.

February 27, 2014 11:42 am at 11:42 am |

RandyF

As long as the Koch brothers fund it they can continue to find dullards.

February 27, 2014 11:43 am at 11:43 am |

RES

As a 60 year old white male, I am disgusted with the t-party. My generation failed to make the nation better because of our selfishness and greed. And the mentality of this is MY nation and MY taxes instead of OURS. The t-party is a FARCE. They had representation unlike the original Tea-Party. They have made this nation worse and are UN-patriotic! They would rather complain and obstruct than see the nation progress.

February 27, 2014 11:43 am at 11:43 am |

MaryM

Republicans, many Americans told you five years ago to ditch the TPers. Now look how the TPers have destroyed the once great republican party. Get rid of the TPers , republicans. I want my fathers republican party back

February 27, 2014 11:44 am at 11:44 am |

Mark

When you're 5 years old it's time to go to school.

February 27, 2014 11:45 am at 11:45 am |

S. Jones

I have a 5 year old daughter who shows more restraint and is more thoughtful than the Tea Party. Maybe the Tea Party is developmentally disabled.

February 27, 2014 11:46 am at 11:46 am |

mark

The tea party is merely fools led by liars and traitors.

February 27, 2014 11:46 am at 11:46 am |

Kelcy

We haven't come to the 2014 election yet where the cost of the shutdown, of the near debt ceiling breach and of course the impact of the sequester (and now omnibus appropriation) cuts are talked about and seen in the hourly political ads on TV. They will be the focal point. My community, which is very, very conservative one, is a military town. At least half of our economy is tied to the military. While the local media has not discussed it since it would be counter to their world view the reality is that people are being laid off from the jobs supporting the military. While most are military retirees that is still a large chunk of change no longer moving in our economy. There are no other jobs to be had except service industry and if you don't have money to spend then you are not going to be going out to eat very often. I'm hearing from friends that the active duty military numbers are already being drawn down at all ranks and this should really hit this summer. Here in our military town that too will hurt. Have friends in other gov`t agencies and the cuts are hitting there too. We are heading into the summer season soon and we will hear about the impact on our National Parks again. Those sequester cuts that impacted last summers tourist season are set in stone now. Right before the 2014 elections. While far right tea party conservatives will keep all their gerrymandered seats I wouldn't head to the bank on all the other ones quite so fast.

February 27, 2014 11:47 am at 11:47 am |

Russell

"We have a very real, real opportunity to throw the sand in the ears and stop it and take the gavel out of Harry Reid's hand this November," Bachmann said.

Sand in the ears? Pretty sure it's sand in the gears. I'm betting Bachmann got this right in her remarks, but that someone mixed it up when putting it into text.

February 27, 2014 11:47 am at 11:47 am |

tom l

I strongly urge all of you to go the TEA Party Express website as well as the TEA Party Patriots website. What you will find is what their mission is. It is apparent to me that there is a gross misperception. Are there crazies that are a part of the TEA Party? Of course. Are there crazies that are libertarians? Of course. Are there crazies that are democrats? Of course. Are there crazies that are repubs? Of course.

I read DMFO and she said she felt uncomfortable when she passed by a rally. I would like to know why. What do you mean that there was something in the air that didn't include all Americans? At the rallies that I went to back in LA they were kind, decent people (and I know you're not gonna believe this but they weren't all white, either).

Their websites speak of what they are trying to accomplish. Nowhere does it name religion. Nowhere does it mention social issues. The website tells what they are all about and the goal of a website is to tell people all about your organization and attract as many people as possible. Why wouldn't they include those issues if they truly were part of their platform?

February 27, 2014 11:47 am at 11:47 am |

Greg In Arkansas

In my original post of "It seems fitting that they celebrate their 5th birthday since they act like 5 year old's most of the time...."...
I sincerely apologize to 5 year old's EVERYWHERE...My grandson was better behaved when he was hungry and in need of a nap....